Fahd Ghalib Basheikh, Ida Widianingsih, Ahmad Zaini Miftah
Decentralized government units in the Global South frequently experience ineffective service delivery because of inadequate funding and weak administrative structures. Using Lamu County Government that allocates bursary funds yet continues to experience operational inefficiencies, this study examines how administrative capacity influences the governance effectiveness of the Lamu County Bursary Programme (LCBP). Guided by Administrative Capacity Theory, the study uses an explanatory sequential mixed methods design using quantitative data from 350 beneficiaries and qualitative data from key informant interviews and focus group discussions. Linear regression results show that administrative capacity is a statistically significant predictor of governance effectiveness (β = 0.627, p < 0.001). Thematic analysis from qualitative data shows three constraints: verification problems, aggravated by geographic dispersion and staffing problems; procedural uncertainty and communication problems, that erode the trust of applicants; and a structural timing penalty, where administrative delays reduce the timeliness and reliability of bursary support, sometimes resulting in temporary school exclusion. The results indicate that the LCBP experiences a capability trap, formal structures are in place but service delivery is weak. Therefore, decentralized units require both financial allocations and effective administrative capabilities. To improve policy outcomes, findings suggest the importance of digitization, staffing at ward level and synchronization of the disbursement calendar with academic cycles.
The current research is about the financing of school participatory structures, particularly FC / CGDES and CGDES in the commune of Droum, Niger Republic. It essentially aims at determining the explanatory factors of financial gap of these structures that are partnership frameworks between the State, development partners, schools, families and community. To do this, both qualitative and quantitative data have been collected across the questionnaire, the snowball technique, the direct observation. Our analyzes showed the existence of factors which created a financial lack directly hindering the achievement of activities of these structures within schools. Added to this, are internal and external parameters including the reluctance of parents linked to their bad connotation of school of white, local actors strategies of co-optation, etc. The whole of these factors determined the low mobilization of funds for the financing of these structures in Droum.
This study presents a comparative analysis of the devolution of education governance between Makueni County in Kenya and Ontario, Canada, focusing on governance structures, funding mechanisms, and educational outcomes. The paper analyzes the various challenges and opportunities posed by decentralization in both regions, with a focus on differences in administrative resources, the distribution of central funds, and local government performance; Others are more systemic within the childhood education environment, for example Makueni County is still quite a long way behind Ontario in terms of fully (for the most part) functioning decentralized education systems, check out the comparative in terms of sustainable or reliable governance models, funding mechanisms and local autonomy, the other perhaps is regional segregation as certainly Makueni County has some overarching larger issues beyond just early childhood development e.g. the funding issues and deployment issues of teachers, but these perhaps can be attributed to the ongoing issues with devolution within Kenya and indeed with human capital in this region more broadly. Employing a mixed-methods research design including policy analysis, interviews and analysis of secondary data, the study examines the impact of devolution on educational outcomes. Results suggest that Makueni promotes more local participation but faces challenges with institutional functionality and fair financing, contrary to the Model of Ontario, which shows a much higher levels of efficiently, equity and accountability. The paper then ends with policy recommendations for Makueni, and suggesting to implement ones from Ontario´s decentralized system that could be a solution for Makueni missing in governance, financial, and education standards.
Charry Mae Grepon, Eloiza Tagarda, Maricel Ugat, Ray Butch Mahinay · 6 authors
The Alternative Learning System (ALS) plays a critical role in expanding access to education for out-of-school youth and adults in the Philippines. However, persistent governance and financing constraints continue to challenge the program’s capacity to deliver equitable learning opportunities. This study examines ALS financing within the context of the 2026 EDCOM II reform to understand how national and local funding mechanisms are structured to support program equity and implementation. The study employed a qualitative policy analysis using document review of official policy reports, fiscal allocations, and reform frameworks related to ALS financing. This study does not evaluate implementation outcomes, learner-level effects, or empirically observed program impacts, and is limited to policy-documentary analysis of financing structures and reform intent. Key sources included the FY 2026 proposed national ALS budget, formal EDCOM II reform documents, DEPED-DBM-DILG Joint Circular No. 1 (s. 2025) on the Special Education Fund (SEF), and related governance issues. A results-chain conceptual model was used to analyze the expected and policy derived relationships between financing inputs, intended program outcomes as reflected in policy logic, rather than empirically validated effects. The documentary analysis suggests that a significant portion of the ALS budget is allocated to direct learner subsidies, reflecting a learner-centered and equity-oriented financing design. Policy reforms under EDCOM II also introduce governance and financing mechanisms, such as decentralization, dedicated ALS budget lines, and SEF co-financing, designed to support more equitable resource allocation. However, persistent bottlenecks, including infrastructure gaps, uneven regional access, and service-delivery capacity constraints, may constrain implementation effectiveness. The study concludes that coordinated national and local financing mechanisms may provide enabling conditions for strengthening ALS implementation. Integrating Program Support Funds and SEF allocations may support more responsive resource distribution and locally responsive service delivery. The findings provide policy-documentary analysis that may inform ALS financing reforms and future efforts toward more equitable resource allocation.
The research focuses on the mechanisms, challenges, and consequences that UHC reform in Kenya has, conceptualizing UHC as a long-term government policy project that cuts across the governance, financing, and state capacity nexus. Based on theoretical frameworks of policy learning, incrementalism, and institutional capacity, the article evaluates the effects of Kenya's devolved system of health and strategic purchasing mechanism on UHC implementation and equity outcomes. Using qualitative policy analysis of government reports and academic publications, the research unveils structural constraints of the social health insurance program over time, the presence of inequalities in the delivery of services, and constraints of governance that mitigate the effects of reforms. These results bring into focus the necessity to strengthen the institutional capacity, strategic purchasing, and intergovernmental mobilization to achieve equitable and sustainable UHC. The article is a policy theory contribution to intricate social reforms through the way in which iterative policy learning and governance structure frame reform paths in a lower- and middle-income setting.
Lumu Emmanuel Roy Muyingo A, Brenda Nabachwa B, Faith Mugisha Ahabyoona C
This study evaluates the Parish Development Model (PDM) as a decentralized rural development initiative aimed at enhancing the economic empowerment of coffee smallholder farmers in Hoima District, Uganda. Using a convergent mixed-methods approach, the research integrates Sen’s Capability Approach, Resilience Theory, and Social Capital Theory to examine three dimensions: institutional support, resource capacity building, and community engagement. Quantitative data were collected from 278 farmers through stratified random sampling, while qualitative insights were obtained from 12 key informant interviews and 8 focus group discussions. Findings indicate that while PDM has improved coffee yields by 37% among beneficiaries and strengthened trust in SACCOs with transformational leadership, significant barriers persist, including elite capture, gender-based land tenure disparities, and low uptake of climate-smart practices. Policy recommendations include community-vetted beneficiary selection, gender-responsive governance measures, and climate-resilient financing. The results offer lessons for scalable decentralized development models applicable in ASEAN and other Global South contexts.
Samuel Wesonga Usolo, Annette Okoth, David Angwenyi
Youth unemployment remains a major concern, particularly in African countries with the youngest population globally. In Kenya, youth unemployment rate has shown fluctuations despite several government efforts such as the Youth Enterprise Development Fund (YEDF), Kenya Youth Empowerment Project (KYEP) and the Youth Employment Scheme Abroad (YESA). The impact of devolution on youth unemployment in Kenya has had little investigation on, which is the reason for this study. The study aims to assess the effect of devolution on youth unemployment rates in Kenya, utilizing Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average-Intervention model. This research was informed by the Keynesian and Decentralization theories of employment, which collectively illustrate how government efforts, like introduction of devolution, are anticipated to influence labor market results. This study used the yearly secondary data on youth unemployment rates from the World Bank covering the period from 1991 to 2022. Computational analysis was done using Python programming. An ARIMA (0, 0, 0)(0,0,1)[4] was selected as the most suitable model for the youth unemployment rates prior to devolution (noise model) due to its lowest Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) value of 234.746 in comparison to other identified candidate models. By including devolution as an intervention in the selected noise model, its statistical significance was established at the 0.05 level of significance. Comparative analysis findings revealed that the average youth unemployment rate increased from 6.67% prior to devolution to 10.19% during the devolution period. The projected counterfactual rate during devolution was approximated to be 8.583%, which confirmed the observed increase as statistically significant. In conclusion, the effect of devolution was found to be statistically significant, implying that youth unemployment rates increased during devolution, as confirmed by the fitted ARIMA - Intervention model. Based on the upward trend in youth unemployment rates, the study recommended that policymakers prioritize other context specific and targeted interventions to address structural barriers in the youth labour markets. These should include expanding access to skills training and vocational education, fostering youth entrepreneurship through financing and mentorship programs, and aligning education curriculum with labour market needs.
Khanh Phuong Nguyen, The Due Ong, Xinyu Zhang, Tra My · 6 authors
Ensuring sufficient financial resources for improving effective and efficient procurement of vaccines was highlighted by the Immunization Agenda 2030, which is particularly challenging for middle-income countries (MICs) that are ineligible for support from Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. In response to the broader decentralization of the governance system and decreased international development aid, the central government of Vietnam decentralized the responsibility of financing the Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) to provincial governments in 2023 but rapidly reversed it considering its following negative consequences, for example, severe vaccine stockouts and the largest decline in childhood immunization coverage in over 20 years. This paper analyzed the consequences closely linked to decentralization in Vietnam, the underlying reasons, and lessons for other MICs. To avoid recurrence, MICs should ensure the primary role of the central government in EPI financing and management, improve the local management capacity, and allocate more resources toward less-developed areas to narrow the intra-country disparities.
HIV/AIDS continues to pose a significant public health challenge in Africa, with Sub-Saharan Africa accounting for the majority of global cases. While international donor funding has historically underpinned HIV/AIDS programs across the continent, the declining availability of external resources has emphasized the need for sustainable domestic financing. Local governments, situated at the intersection of national policies and community-level implementation, play a pivotal role in bridging this funding gap. This review examines the contributions of local governments to HIV/AIDS program funding in Africa through a comparative lens, focusing on successes, challenges, and opportunities for strengthening their role. Case studies from South Africa, Uganda, Nigeria, and Kenya highlight diverse approaches to resource mobilization, policy implementation, and community engagement. Persistent barriers, including limited fiscal capacity, donor dependency, weak governance structures, political instability, and competing priorities, are analyzed to inform strategic recommendations. The findings underscore the need for enhanced fiscal decentralization, capacity building, and innovative financing mechanisms to empower local governments in sustaining HIV/AIDS responses. By fostering greater local government participation, Africa can achieve more resilient and effective health systems, ensuring progress toward ending AIDS as a public health threat by 2030. Keywords: HIV/AIDS funding, Local government, Sustainable financing, Sub-Saharan Africa, Public health policy.
This paper aims to emphasize the significance of creating subnational nutrition action plans in regions with high variation in nutrition challenges and evaluates their projected return on investment in Kenya. Despite steady progress, undernutrition in Kenya remains high, costing the country an estimated US$ 4.2 billion or 7% of its GDP annually. Under Kenya's decentralized government system, numerous counties developed sectoral County Nutrition Action Plans (CNAPs) in 2018 to identify and prioritize essential nutrition actions to target undernutrition at the subnational level. In this paper, the authors present findings from county investment cases (CICs) in five counties - Nandi, Busia, Makueni, Vihiga, and Elgeyo Marakwet-including the costs, health impacts, and benefit to cost ratios of implementing high-impact nutrition interventions. Data was collected on the target coverage and cost of interventions prioritized in each county's CNAPs for the 2018 to 2022 period. A monetized DALY approach, using the value of a statistical life methodology was used for cost-benefit analysis and the Optima Nutrition tool was used for cost-effectiveness analysis. The estimated cumulative impact of the five CNAPs was projected as 1,800 child and 115 maternal deaths averted; preventing and treating 19,000 cases of stunting and 4,700 cases of wasting in children under five and averting 67,000 cases of anaemia in pregnant women and adolescent girls. The county-level benefit-cost ratios range from $5:1 to $14:1 (at a default 3% discount rate). This analysis demonstrates that localized subnational plans can be advantageous for policymaking and prioritization to better address subnational disparities in undernutrition and offer a high return on investment.
In the education decentralization processes, community participation in education governance has been argued to be essential for improving accountability to service beneficiaries. Therefore, this paper examined the perspectives of key actors on the impact of an educational decentralization policy on improving school quality education in Junior High Schools in Ghana. Participants in the study were 54 School Management Committee (SMC)/Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) members, 106 teachers, and 11 head teachers in 11 schools drawn from two districts in the Central Region of Ghana. Teachers filled out questionnaires and interviews were conducted with SMC/PTA members using a semi-structured interview guide and with 11 head teachers. The paper reveals that the education decentralization policy, with community participation at its heart, has given schools some autonomy in their decision-making process. However, the involvement of community members in school activities has been limited mainly to financing, with little emphasis on the decision-making process in school governance. The study recommends that there should be adequate support for communities to become more involved in the decision-making process, especially in implementing the School Performance Improvement Plan for Ghana to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4.
Shows how China improved the adequacy and equity of government educational expenditure and how the changes improved education outcomes by (1) describing the education finance system and its changes over time, focusing on pretertiary education and on the decentralization of education funding and provision; (2) discussing how the evolution of the education finance system has affected the adequacy and equity of education spending and development; and (3) recognizing the challenges to the current system, particularly with regard to equity, and offering some potential policy solutions. Subnational governments, particularly counties, remain primarily responsible financing and administration of pretertiary education. However, there exists a large and growing cascading system of financial transfers from the central government to local governments aiming to help equalize educational funding across regions. Nevertheless, inequality remains one of China’s biggest challenges and will require the central and provincial governments to considerredistribution across regions and improve incentives to support schools in poor regions.
Educational systems around the world have undergone major reforms since the 1980s, with largely disappointing results. The objective of this paper is to understand the reasons behind the lackluster results with the purpose of devising ways to address them. Analysis in the paper is based on the understanding that the education sector is characterized by distinct functional imperatives that need to be addressed in policy responses that must involve a wide array of actors to be effective. In this view, education policy is fundamentally about establishing a governance structure to ensure that all the essential functions necessary to achieve the chosen policy goals are performed. Accordingly, the paper proposes a governance framework for education comprising political and operational functions, which it then applies to education policy reforms in the Philippines since the 1970s. The analysis finds that the reforms have focused on financing and decentralization issues while overlooking many other critical governance functions. The lackluster results are unsurprising given that the sector has been beset by many problems unrelated to centralized bureaucratic administration and which have been left unattended. The conclusions regarding the importance of comprehensive governance to emerge from this study are relevant not only for understanding education policy reforms in the Philippines and elsewhere but will also help develop a fuller understanding of the functioning of the education sector in general.
Chapter 2 situates the book in the context of a rapidly urbanizing India. It describes India’s demographic shift to cities and towns since Independence in 1947 and the concurrent proliferation of slum settlements. The chapter further outlines the formal institutions of governance in India’s post-decentralization cities and the sources of public finance that are used to provide services to slums. It then goes on to delineate the mediated, nonprogrammatic environment in which slum residents seek access to public services. The chapter ends with a description of the organizational structures of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Indian National Congress (INC) in Bhopal and Jaipur and how they have percolated neighborhoods.
Beatrice W. Kadori, Benjamin M. Mwawasi, Paul Mwendac
<em>The issue of financing education, especially secondary education is a growing concern in the Kenyan education system. The government through the Ministry of Education (MoE) has employed financing strategies such as bursaries for the needy but bright students through National Constituency Development Fund (NCDF). The purpose of this study was to assess the role of National Constituency Development Fund (CDF) in enhancing access to secondary school education in Mombasa County. The study objectives were to; assess the role of NCDF of improving access rate in enhancing access to secondary school education in Mombasa County, examine the role of NCDF in provision of infrastructural facilities in enhancing access to secondary school education in Mombasa County and to assess role of NCDF in provision of instructional resources in enhancing access to secondary school education in Mombasa County. The study was based on Decentralization and economic Theory. The study adopted a descriptive research design. The target populations for the study was 32 public secondary schools in Mombasa County (15 schools in Mvita, 6 schools in Likoni, 6 schools in Changamwe and 5 schools in Kisauni Sub-Counties), 32 principals and 582 teachers from the schools in the four Sub-Counties totaling to 646 people. The results were analyzed by the application of descriptive statistics and presented in percentages, means, frequency distribution tables, and pie charts. The expected outcome of the study was the determination of the role of NCDF in enhancing access to secondary school education and other methods used to finance secondary education in Mombasa County. This study research found that</em>
This chapter analyzes developed public policies on basic education for young people and adults, highlights age as an important factor of discrimination in women’s struggle for educational rights. In the complex matrix of selection, discrimination, and exclusion factors that make up Brazilian education, gender structures barely emerge. Brazilian legislative documents and educational policies have referred to basic education for adults since end of the nineteenth century. Public action organized around adult education grew in importance after 1945, when 25 percent of the National Fund for Primary Education resources was directed to literacy programs and campaigns. One of the achievements of the democratic transition period was legal recognition of youth and adult education rights within 1988 Constitution. The new constitution guaranteed access to public and free basic education for all. The principal instrument of educational reform targeting decentralization of educational finance and emphasizing basic education for children and adolescents was the Fourteenth Constitutional Amendment, approved by the Congress in 1996.
Financing is a major challenge and concern for the future of family planning (FP) programs. As countries commit to increasing access to and quality of FP services and to universal health care (UHC), it is crucial that UHC schemes include FP and other reproductive health services. This brief aims to: 1) document trends in UHC and health financing, drawing out implications for policymakers and programmers; and 2) identify opportunities for the FP community of practice to advocate for the inclusion of quality FP services within UHC and health financing discussions. With this brief, we aim to highlight experiences in Kenya, given that there is a body of experience with health financing reforms and UHC schemes and a relatively strong national FP program. The Kenya case study is instructive for other countries with decentralized and mixed health systems as they seek to integrate FP within their own UHC initiatives and health financing reforms.
Nathaniel Mason, Charles O. Oyaya, Julia Boulenouar
Abstract Motivation Across the Global South, unclear institutional frameworks undermine progress in improving services. Often, ongoing decentralization reforms reduce clarity further. Policy professionals working on institutional reform lack comparative models. Purpose To identify key challenges for the institutional arrangements for urban sanitation in decentralizing contexts, in Kenya and elsewhere, and to propose possible responses. Approach and methods We use key informant interviews and literature review in a problem‐driven analysis, drawing from three comparative case studies: South Africa, Indonesia and Tamil Nadu State. The analysis builds upon research on institutional effectiveness—co‐operation, collaboration and co‐ordination—rooted in game theory and elaborated in the 2017 World Development Report. Findings Three key problems in Kenya are identified: overlaps and competition around sector leadership at national and devolved levels; weak incentives for county governments to commit policy attention and finance, despite devolution; and limited regulatory oversight. Policy implications We identify a range of options for urban sanitation policy‐makers: (a) to engage non‐sectoral authorities in co‐ordinating multi‐sectoral issues across all levels of government; (b) to encourage political commitment to pro‐poor sanitation services at decentralized levels; and (c) to use incentive‐based and risk‐based approaches to regulate decentralized entities and strengthen local capacity for monitoring and enforcement.
Sajitha Bashir, Marlaine E. Lockheed, Elizabeth Ninan, Jee‐Peng Tan
Addresses issues of governance, financing, and managing resources for education in Sub-Saharan Africa, where severe deficiencies in public financial management (PFM) processes affect the efficacy of resource use and do not consider the specific requirements of the education sector. Though governments have devoted sizable and increasing resources to increase access to primary education, current expenditure patterns reflect policy choices made in the past. Almost all government spending on education gets absorbed by teachers’ salaries, with little spent on complementary inputs deemed critical to improving quality. Public spending on education is distributed highly unequally among household income quintiles because almost no students from the lowest quintiles attain upper-secondary or tertiary education. Decentralization initiatives have become widespread in Sub-Saharan Africa, including decentralization to subnational and local governments; more directly, to schools, through various forms of school grants; and, in a few cases, to non-state actors such as private providers or nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).
Communities play a key role in educational development in many countries. In Cameroon, a number of legislations transfer certain educational responsibilities from the central government to local communities in line with the decentralized form of the state. Using the 2015/2016 academic year as the basis for assessment, this study examined the extent to which communities are responsive to the educational tasks assigned to them, and whether their contributions counts with regard to access to secondary education. Focus was on a sample of 65 randomly selected secondary schools in Fako Division of the South West Region of Cameroon. Principals from the schools responded to a questionnaire – the main instrument for data collection. Interviews were also held with parents, community leaders, councils and other stakeholders to complement questionnaire responses. Research data was analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) and finding presented in the form of frequencies and proportions. Multinomial Logistic Regression Model was used to appraise the predictive power of community contributions on access to secondary education. The findings showed that community financing was little to inexistent and did not account for the relatively good access to secondary education reported. A major recommendation was for the government to effectively implement the process of decentralization by adequately empowering communities and other stakeholders at the decentralized level with finances and other resources needed to enhance the volume and quality of their participation in the achievement of state’s development concerns. Article visualizations: